The Moral Imagination Michael Matheson Miller

Photo Credit: Tyler Follon - Wingman Visuals
In this episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast, I speak with Professor William Easterly of New York University about his work in development economics, and the problems of technocracy and social engineering of the poor.
Easterly worked at the World Bank from 1985-2001 and began to be troubled by a number of things, including how aid is given without much concern about how it is distributed and managed thus subsidizing bad governance and harming the poor. We discuss Peter Bauer’s critique of how foreign aid politicizes development and delayed the development of business in Africa, and Bauer’s paradox of aid:
* The countries that need aid — aid will not be effective
* The countries where aid will be effective — do not need aid
But the key problem with the dominant model of development is not simply a lack of efficiency, but the failure to respect the rights and agency of poor people. Easterly explains that development projects often result in people being deprived of their property, political rights, and participation and consent in the very projects that are supposed to help them. He discussed the tendency to to trivialize problems in the developing world, and the lack of feedback and market tests in development policy. We discuss how the developing world can often become a a lab for experiments for technocrats and social engineers.
We also talk about Hayek’s Knowledge Problem, a response to Marianna Mazucatto idea of moonshots, and what I call “embedded'“ economics.
We discuss a number of issues including
* “The Debate that Never Happened” - Gunnar Myrdal vs. Friedrich Hayek on development economics
* Social Engineering
* Technocracy and the Hubris of the Technocrat
* Spontaneous Order
* Edmund Burke and Friedrich Hayek
* Soviet 5-year central planning as model for economic development
* Limited Horizons of Humanitarianism— a secular, hollowed out version of Christian love the focuses on material at the expense of personal agency.
* Lack of Accountability
* Material vs. Non-material Needs
* Materialist visions of the human person
* People have a right to consent to their own progress
* Harry Potter novels vs. Mosquito Nets
* Marianna Mazucatto’s ideas of Moonshots
* vs. accidental discovery
* vs opportunity costs
* vs failed social engineering projects
* and the complexity of economics and markets embedded in deep historical, cultural, norms, institutions, and religious foundations.
* How to think about foreign aid and public goods like healthcare, infrastructure, education
* Aid for emergencies vs. aid as answer to chronic poverty
* Institutions of Justice including clear title to land, access to justice in the courts, ability to participate in the formal economy, and free exchange.
* The impact of globalization on manufacturing in the US
* Trade-offs and economic volatility
* The moral rules that are needed for progress to beneficial
* Consent, Self-Determination, Moral Equality
* Attempts to develop Native Americans, US intervention in Philippines etc.
* Material progress is never enough to justify intervention
Biography
William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University and Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute, which won the 2009 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge in Development Cooperation Award. He is the author of three books: The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor (March 2014), The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (2006), which won the FA Hayek Award from the Manhattan Institute, and The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (2001).
He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed academic articles, and has written columns and reviews for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New

This episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast is a talk I gave at AmPhil’s Center for Civil Society conference in November, 2023 on the “Rise of the Nones.”   According to Pew Research, those who declare no religious affiliation - None -  are now the largest religious category in the United States.
In this talk I address several overarching reasons for the decline of Christianity and address how five dominant visions of the human person including person as a cog or scourge, transhumanism & transgenderism, plastic anthropology, and the person as a commodity — also play a key role not only in despair and anxiety, but contribute both to the decline of Christian belief and the rise of secularism and pantheism/new paganism.
This talk is a thematic overview and distillation of two longer lectures I give on five false anthropologies and 10 reasons for unbelief and the decline of Christianity. Some of the topics I address include
Breakdown of the Family - specifically decrease in fatherhood participation, and its impact on religious practice Sexual Revolution  - disorients the person and relationships between men and women Feminism & Smashing the Patriarchy — “Flight from Woman” Egalitarianism and Pantheism - Tocqueville’s prediction of the rise of pantheism in democratic societies Technology + Technological Society: Practical: use of technology and propaganda Theoretical: Empiricist rationality is incoherent and severs relationship between affectivity and reason Scientism: vision of a technical solution to evil, sin, suffering Humanitarianism and what I call “Almost Christianity” Failures of the Church: scandal, corruption, assimilation, and failure to teach and catechize Loss of non-linguistic catechesis When people are leaving Christianity today, do they know what they are leaving?  Confusion about the nature and destiny of the human person and what it means to be an embodied person   Plastic Anthropology —malleable based on feelings Transhumanism / Transgenderism - combination of biology and technology Person as Cog Person as Scourge Person as Commodity — Everything becomes an object of trade. Del Noce’s concept of Pure Bourgeois Conclude with several suggestions to address the loss of faith and confusions over anthropology Re-affirm that Being is good and intelligible - Our bodies are good Each person is a subject and not simply an object Defend Reason and Freedom We are embodied and Embedded Persons— our bodies are not accidental Thinkers I address include Augusto Del Noce, Joseph Ratzinger, C.S. Lewis, Henri DeLubac, Carrie Gress, Karl Stern, Christopher Palmer, Jaron Lanier, Max Scheler, Joseph Pieper, John Paul II See www.themoralimagination.com for book links and related podcasts.




 
AmPhil
Center For Civil Society - Nonprofit Educational Leader
Leading educational provider for nonprofit fundraising learning the Center for Civil Society is the go to for major gifts, campaigns, strategy, and...
Time to read
8 minutes

Dec 22nd, 2022


 
AmPhil
Rise Of The Nones Nonprofit Conference Nov 7-8 Scottsdale. AZ
Leading scholars, philanthropists, and nonprofit leaders will discuss the rise in secularism, decline in church attendance, and other related trends, and... (352 kB)
https://amphil.com/event/c4cs-riseofnones/  







 
Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project
Religious ‘Nones’ in America: Who They Are and What They Believe
28% of U.S. adults are religiously unaffiliated, describing themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” when asked about their religion.
Written by
Gregory A. Smith, Patricia Tevington, Justin Nortey, Michael Rotolo, Asta Kallo and Becka A. Alper








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In this episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast I speak with Hungarian Ambassador to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta, Ambassador Eduard Habsburg, about his book The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times. We discuss a number of themes including some history of the Habsburg Dynasty, the life and death of Blessed Charles of Austria, the last Austro-Hungarian emperor, including the remarkable tradition of the funeral for Habsburg emperors. We also discuss themes of marriage, children, religion, technology, liturgy, and especially the importance of family and tradition to provide rootedness in a time of individualism and “liquid modernity.”  Other themes and topics include:
Different Visions of Subsidiarity — Catholic Social Teaching vs. European Union Decentralization and localism vs. Devolution of power from a central state Technocratic Politics Alexis de Tocqueville on Individualism and Centralization Robert Nisbet on the Quest for Community Joseph Ratzinger — What it means to be a Christian Liturgy as non-linguistic catechesis The Human Person as Embodied and Embedded and more Biography
Ambassador Eduard Habsburg is the Hungarian Ambassador to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta.  He is the author of The Habsburg Way. 7 Rules for Turbulent Times from Sophia Press and Dubbie: The Double-Headed Eagle. Full Quiver Publishing, 2020.  You can connect and follow him on Twitter at @EduardHabsburg





 
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Eduard Habsburg (@EduardHabsburg) on X
Ambassador of Hungary to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta.

Book: THE HABSBURG WAY
https://t.co/vMufBgoJGE







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In this episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast I speak with Seth Kaplan about his book Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society One Zip Code at a Time.  Seth has spent his career working in fragile states around the world — countries that are unstable and prone to violence, war, and political problems. About 10 years ago Seth was increasingly asked if the US was becoming fragile.  As he turned his attention to studying the United States, he concluded was that while the US is not fragile as a country, there are many areas and neighborhoods throughout the country that are very fragile — where poverty rates are high, there is crime, and instability, and social capital, family stability, and economic and educational opportunities are low.  Seth explains that depending on the neighborhood where you live in the United States it can mean a shorter lifespan of over 20 years.   Kaplan speaks about two faces of poverty, material and social, and how they are both a problem of broken relationships.   He argues:
“I think the real question you have to ask about the United States we have many things going very well in our country but something has gotten worse in the last couple of generations: the politics, the trust, the social breakdown, the deaths of despair, the health crisis the depression, and the rise of suicides. The big question that we have to ask ourselves is what has changed in our relationships that lead us to have so many social and political problems?” Themes and Topics we discuss include:
Family Stability Social Capital Bonding vs. Bridging Social Capital Relationships and Community The role of religion and religious practice in communities Associationalism vs. Individualism vs. Collectivism










 

Biography











 

Seth D. Kaplan is a leading expert on fragile states. He is a Professorial Lecturer in the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Adviser for the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT), and consultant to multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, U.S. State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, and OECD as well as developing country governments and NGOs.
 
Resources Chris Arnade Podcast on his book Dignity
Communio — Communio is a nonprofit that trains and equips churches to evangelize through the renewal of healthy relationships, marriages, and the family.














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In this episode I speak with Fr. Cajetan Cuddy O.P. about Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophic Analysis of the Nature of Man, by Fr. Robert Edward Brennan, O.P., edited and with an introduction by Fr. Cuddy.
 
Aristotle wrote that “to attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.” We often read psychology because we want to understand ourselves and our behavior- and the behavior of others.  While we don’t normally think of St. Thomas Aquinas as a psychologist, as a serious philosopher, theologian, and student of the human person, St. Thomas gives us deep insight into human psychology — the study of the psyche or soul — our intellect, memory, will, emotions, and our embodied, embedded existence.

Fr. Brennan’s book on Thomistic Psychology provides a good accessible introduction to Aquinas’ reflections on psychology.  As. Fr. Cuddy notes, some of the science in Thomistic Psychology is a bit out of date, but the key principles and ideas are still applicable and provide an important contribution, especially in a time when so many struggle with anxiety, depression, sadness and other mental health challenges.  These have many causes to be sure, but the impact of modern theories of materialism, spiritualism and other reductionist visions of the person makes people even more confused about who they are and how to live well.
One of the ideas central to the work of St. Thomas and Fr. Brennan is the idea of truth — conforming the mind to reality — and how taking truth seriously combined with a solid, non-reductionist philosophy of the person can have practical, positive impact on our mental and psychological health. Thomistic Psychology presents an integrated vision of the person that helps us the better to understand ourselves and others, and provides clear models and practical advice on addressing our problems, how to fight bad habits and build good ones, how to address our emotions, disappointments, and successes, and a roadmap on how to live well.

St. Thomas’ philosophy and pyschology are also very important because he takes our embodiement seriously.  We are not souls in a body or driving around in our body like we drive around in a car. Nor are we simply material beings determined by our neurobiology or genetics. Rather we are embodied persons our physical, moral, spiritual, emotional, and psychological life are intertwined.  What we do and happens to us physically impacts our emotional and mental life and vice versa.  St. Thomas’ suggested remedy for sadness is a perfect of example of his taking our physical and spiritual nature seriously.
We discuss a broad range of topics including:
What is a person
Divine Persons, Angelic Persons, Embodied persons
What it means for human to have a nature.
What is a soul?
What is a body?
Why the body matters
Free will
The proper use of the powers of man
The remedy for saddnes
St. Thomas on the Senses — sight, touch, hearing etc.
Memory
Imagination
St. Thomas idea of self-creation
Human formation
The person as passive and active agent
The role of happiness
Evil as a privation
Why we need to be careful about the music we listen to, the movies we watch, what we think about 
Spiritual and/or Religious
The beginning of love according to John Paul II
Faith, Hope, Charity
How the Christian life is not to become an angel — but a human being fully integrated.
Liturgy
Fasting
Pray with our Bodies
Find show notes and links to books we discuss at www.themoralimagination.com

Biography:

Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., is a priest of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph. He serves as the general editor of the Thomist Tradition Series, and he is co-author of Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters. Fr. Cuddy has a B.A. from Franciscan University, a M.Div./S.T.B., The Pontifical Faculty of the I

In this episode I speak with Professor Vigen Gurioan about the revised and expanded edition of his book Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Imagination. We discuss the power of stories, how they help can us develop self-knowledge, and how fairy tales and classic stories are essential for education and moral formation for children — and for adults. Fairy tales and classic stories can impress upon us profound philosophical and often theological insights about life and death, the good and beautiful, the value of courage and nobility, and importance of self-sacrifice for love. Stories, themes, and thinkers we we discuss include
Hans Christian Anderson
The Little Mermaid
Beauty and the Beast
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
George McDonald
Pinocchio, honor, honesty, and the responsibility of children to their parents
The Ugly Duckling, courage, and the desire for beauty
The Wind and the Willows, Charlotte’s Web, and friendship of equality and friendship of mentors
Good Wishes and Bad Wishes
Joseph Pieper and Dietrich von Hildebrand on joy as a the superabundant fruit of love and self-gift
Charles Dickens
C.S. Lewis
Edmund Burke
Aristotle on Friendship and more


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